Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

In Armenian Election Aftermath, Lessons Learned?

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • In Armenian Election Aftermath, Lessons Learned?

    OP-ED: IN ARMENIAN ELECTION AFTERMATH, LESSONS LEARNED?

    ianyan magazine, USA
    Feb 27 2013

    Posted by Guest Author on February 27, 2013 at 3:48 am

    The question on most people's minds in Armenia since the Feb. 18
    presidential elections, and the stream of protests that has followed,
    is what is Raffi Hovannisian going to do next? What is his plan? From
    one meeting to the next, one village to the next, that seems to be the
    paramount question. The 2008 presidential elections, when after street
    demonstrations by hundreds of thousands protesting against grossly
    falsified elections, Serge Sargsyan was inaugurated president are fresh
    in the minds of many, even if the sentiments remain unspoken. At that
    time the protests were quelled through state sponsored violence and
    a regime-imposed state of emergency. Underlying that big question
    are several that follow: How will violence be avoided this time?

    What have we learned? And what are the options for Raffi Hovannisian
    and his team?

    Though I have read numerous articles on the topic, it was Hrant
    Ter-Abrahamyan's recent article that struck a chord with me. Most
    striking was that he addressed a question I have battled with since
    February 2008. When a regime is willing to use force against its own
    people, how do the people, as resolute and numerous as they may be,
    bring about change, without suffering bloodshed? And by change, in
    this context, I am referring to the more immediate type of "change,"
    of having the candidate who had actually won the election be declared
    the winner. Even if one is willing to consider bloodshed in the case
    of all out revolution, how does that change happen, when the regime's
    resources are so much greater than those of the people? Except for
    Burma, where non-violent protests took place, more recent examples
    of the revolutionary waves of the Arab Spring which left thousands
    dead in its path and the ongoing violence in Syria are all too common.

    But we would like to avoid bloodshed... how is it done?

    Ter-Abrahamyan's answer was quite clear. The instruments of potential
    violence, like the police and the army, must be neutralized, either
    through growing differences within the regime itself or by having
    leaders of these institutions themselves joining the opposition.

    Ideally, I would say, the people, and whoever is leading them, must
    be able to convince the leaders of the police and the army NOT to use
    violence and force against the people. This makes sense to me. The
    first Armenian president, Levon Ter-Petrosyan, who would have likely
    won the 2008 elections had they been free and fair, tried that approach
    back then.

    He worked with two deputy ministers of defense, Lieutenant-General
    Manvel Grigoryan and Mr. Gagik Melkonyan to try to attain the support
    of the army for the people or at least to make sure that violence and
    force would not be used against the people. He seemed to be making
    some progress initially. It obviously and unfortunately fell through,
    and at the end violence was used against the demonstrators. Even then,
    his strategy to co-opt the power structures was part of his plan.

    What is happening now on that front? I have no idea if part if Mr.

    Hovannisian's plan includes talks with the army or police chiefs;
    hopefully it does as one method of trying to guarantee the security of
    the people. We know, nonetheless that Mr. Hovannisian is consistently,
    repeatedly and directly talking to the police at the rallies; he
    speaks with them with respect and his language is inclusive of them:
    he tries to make them see themselves as part of the people's struggle
    for legitimacy, or at least, not their enemy. And at least in Gyumri,
    they were listening. But that was no surprise, it was Gyumri.

    There is an approach, in this respect, that Mr. Hovannisian is taking
    that perhaps Ter-Petrosyan did not, and I wonder if this additional
    dimension could possibly produce a different outcome. Let me backtrack
    for a moment. Ter-Petrosyan's team spent significant effort on the
    appeal to the constitutional court. We will see what Mr. Hovannisian's
    response to the Central Election Commission's confirmation on Feb. 25
    of Serge Sargsyan's re-election will be; he has strongly implied that
    he will appeal to the Constitutional Court. Ter-Petrosyan stated in
    2008 that the world was watching, though it turned out the world
    turned a blind eye to the true principles of democracy and human
    rights, and followed their own interests; similarly, the reports of
    the international election monitors turned a blind eye to the truth.

    Battles for the respect of the people's will were also waged at the
    level of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. Beyond
    the elections results, that campaign brought multitudes of human
    rights violations that followed for years to the attention of what
    is known as the "international community," to no avail. Maybe Mr.

    Hovannisian's team will battle on the same fronts; but it is also
    possible that the team may have learned the uselessness of those
    observers and reports, and will focus there efforts differently.

    Why is this important?

    Because from the very beginning, Mr. Hovannisian has included a factor,
    possibly a force, that Ter-Petrosyan did not: the Diaspora.

    Even at the first official public protest meeting on Wednesday February
    20th, one of the speakers at Liberty Square was a diasporan, Garo
    Ghazarian, who is the chairman of the Armenian Bar Association in
    the United States. In fact, Mr. Ghazarian wrote a letter addressed
    to Mr. Sargsyan on February 1, 2013, urging him to "deliver to
    the Armenian citizenry its constitutional right to free, fair and
    democratic elections."5

    And while the Ramgavar Party congratulated Sargsyan almost immediately,
    the ARF or Dashnak party issued a statement that the party stood for
    the "will of the people." In fact, Asbarez, one of the main ARF papers
    in the Diaspora, has been covering the events, and overall has been
    quite positive regarding Hovannisian. Days before the election, the
    ARF made a statement and the article covering it is titled "ARF says
    vote NO to Sarkissian." Days later, even Karen Yegparian, a regular
    columnist, mentioned THE elections, though briefly, in his column,
    and an interview with an ARF member in Yerevan was published referring
    to the elections as giving 'hope' and 'turning a new page.

    The ARF joined Hovannisian's movement within days.

    Mr. Hovannisian is, as has been said, more Dashnak in some ways than
    the Dashnaks themselves. His approach to foreign policy, specifically
    his focus on genocide, reparations and recognition of NKR, speak to
    the nationalistic hearts of the Dashnaks. While obviously a completely
    different political party, some ARF members and followers in the
    Western world may feel closer to his politics than they do to the
    policies of their own ARF members in Armenia. And if the ARF chose
    to support him with their full might, such a move could garner a lot
    of support and clamor from its diasporan supporters.

    I don't know if this additional factor integrated in Mr. Hovannisian's
    approach could make a significant impact. I don't know if it's a
    safe factor to bring in. I have never hidden my distrust of diasporan
    organizations' involvement in Armenia's politics, especially bringing
    the diaspora into processes to legitimize or de-legitimize elections in
    Armenia. Still, it remains a factor. And could it be enough to change
    the answer to my initial question or, at least, to nudge it slightly.

    P.S. Of course, one possible solution to Mr. Hovannisian's challenge
    is that Mr. Hovannisian accepts some position in Sargsyan's
    government. But that, that and the implications and sequel of such
    a deal, constitute the theme of a whole separate volume.

    Tzitzernak is the pseudonym of an opposition blogger who regularly
    writes about human rights and social justice in Armenia. The author
    prefers to remain anonymous.

    http://www.ianyanmag.com/2013/02/27/op-ed-in-armenian-election-aftermath-lessons-learned/

Working...
X